Where the Boys Are

Another of the movies that shows up on TCM often enough but that I had surprisingly not seen before now is one of the first of the "beach" movies, Where the Boys Are. The last time it was on TCM, I finally got around to recording it so that I could do a review on it here.

The movie starts off at Midwestern Liberal Arts College, a school where one of the popular degrees for women is the Mrs. degree, or so the old joke goes about co-eds. Merritt (Dolores Hart) is one of those students, and has rather shocking, at least for 1960s, views on sex, namely that she thinks women should try it before marriage so that they can know whether the man they're doing it with is the right man for them. This causes her problems with the administration, and with her grades she might have to stay up north over spring break to study. Miss out on all the fun down in sunny Florida?

Well, she and her friends have rented a place in Florida to stay for the week or two of spring break, and even if any of them need to stody or have nasty colds, it's off to Florida anyway. In addition to Merritt there's Tuggle (Paula Prentiss), who wants love first and then maybe she'll have sex after marriage; hockey player Angie (singer Connie Francis, who also handles the opening credits song and gets a musical number in the middle); and Melanie (Yvette Mimieux), a naïve freshman. Along the way to Fort Lauderdale, they come across a young man looking for a ride, and pick him up in part because he can drive: "TV" Thompson (Jim Hutton). Nowadays, we'd know that he and Tuggle are going to hit it off, since the two stars playing the characters would get cast together in several more movies, but back in 1960 we didn't know it yet.

They get to their efficiency in Fort Lauderdale, and find the place crowded. So crowded, in fact, that they have trouble getting to the beach, as the place is loaded with other students from all over the country also on spring break. Indeed, the local police chief (Chill Wills) informs his men not to be too hard on the students as they're only temporary and don't really mean harm but the city needs the tourist money they bring. My how times have changed over the past 60 years.

While Tuggle is being coy with TV, who's at heart a decent guy even if needs to figure that out by screwing up first, the other women meet men as well. Merritt meets Ryder (George Hamilton), a senior at Brown, and fabulously wealthy. He comes from old money and the family has a vacation house down in Florida as well as a yacht. Merritt thought she was looking for sex, but now she's not so sure, and Ryder is similarly not sure about how far to go. One day on the beach, the girls see one of those beatnik-type jazz combos that were a trope of teen movies of this era, led by Basil (Frank Gorshin). Since Angie and Basil both have some musical talent, they wind up together as well.

And then there's poor Melanie. She meets a Yalie -- another Ivy Leaguer! -- and thinks she's in love. She doesn't realize that he only wants her because she's willing to put out, and that's going to cause big problems first for her, and then for the group of friends as a whole, threatening to break up relationships.

The interesting thing about Where the Boys Are is that although it really started the beach movie phenomenon of the 1960s (OK, I think Gidget was actually a year earlier), it's really quite atypical compared to the rest of the later beach movies. It's a lot more complex than just a light beach movie, especially with the Melanie story line. That, and it's rather shocking in how open the young women are about sex and love for a movie from 1960, and especially MGM, which didn't normally do such strong social stuff.

You might go into Where the Boys Are thinking it's just another beach movie and a time capsule of 1960. But in addition to being that time capsule, it's actually a pretty good movie.